Giggling fish exhumed effervescent bubbles to the surface of the ocean: trails of incomprehensible chatter and squealing excitement. Dolphins ducked their playful snouts above the shimmering waters; glaring sunshine creating iridescent mermaid scales on frothy waves. Translucent baby pink seashells gleamed invitingly by the sandy shore, daring the ocean to come and plant adoring kisses on their glossy coats. Individual grass blades, mantis green, seemed to sing in their relaxed swaying.
Spring sighed contentedly.
"So, you might've been right," I conceded begrudgingly to Toby, casually twirling my worn fishing rod between my hardened fingers.
"About what?" the twenty-five-year-old responded innocuously, jade orbs glittering in the caressing sunbeams.
"About the whole Gill thing."
"Of course I was," he chortled happily, merriment seeping into the creases neighbouring his eyes, "The day I read you wrongly is the day I lose my title as best friend."
"Which is never, then."
"Never," he beamed, short teeth against his supple lips creating a gentle dewy smile. That was what his smile reminded me of: morning dew on dozy meadows, soothing and calming and holding promises of new beginnings.
"Something about it doesn't feel right though, Tobes," I confessed quietly to him, eyes focused on a chipped fingernail; wincing groove etched into the smooth keratin arc.
"Why's that?"
"I feel like," I began, biting my waxy cheek in contemplation before I continued, before I gave life to the words I so desperately wished not to hear, "like I'm cheating on him." I didn't have to say who him was – I was always speaking about the same person. Everything was eternally about him.
Toby nodded noiselessly, lips the colour of coral anchored to the ocean bed. His silvery blue hair flittered against his cheekbones in the salty sea breeze, prancing transiently on his milky skin. His slipper-clad feet dangled off the pier on which we sat.
"And I know that it's a little ridiculous, because it's not like we're still together or anything. He's been gone for over a year now. But, I don't know. That's just the way I feel.
"It's not ridiculous," Toby sounded pacifyingly, gazing smilingly at me, "You can't help the way you feel. What would be ridiculous, however, is passing up an opportunity to be with someone you really like because you can't let go of the past."
The past. The word jabbed at my heart, a fine needle pricking the thin membrane. Whenever I thought about the notion of how Chase and I were a thing of the past, that I would probably never see him again: I grew paralyzed, trapped in time and space, overcome with mind-numbing sadness.
"You like Gill, right?" Toby queried pointedly.
"I think so," I faltered, dragging my fishing rod so the garish bobber shifted to the left, "For reasons beyond my comprehension."
"Do you think he could make you happy?"
"Maybe?" I wavered, uncertainty resting on my brow. "I don't know."
"That means no, then," Toby replied simply, wisdom exuding from his silhouette, "But if you think that there's the slightest chance that he could, then I think it's worth the risk. I know Chase would've wanted for you to be happy." He looked up at me, jade in his eyes never ceasing to remind me of my mother's beautiful engagement ring. She once told me that jade symbolized purification, gentleness and nourishment. My grandmother used to wear a jade bracelet around her wrist, because she believed that it purified her energy field with acceptance, love and understanding.
Toby was my jade bracelet.
"You always know all the right things to say," I semi-complained to him, nudging his shoulder for good effect. He grinned, corners of his lips lifting to reveal his softly carved teeth.
"It's a curse," he jested, narrowly missing reeling in a feisty sardine.
"It's a curse I'm very glad that you have," I smiled, resting my shoulder against his. The straw hat he wore slung across his shoulders pressed against my back.
Cozy silence whirled around us, encasing us in a bubble of serenity.
"Do you still miss him?" Toby broke the stillness, concern lacing his low silken voice.
"You know me," I breathed, casting my eyes out to the distance, past the border where the ocean ended and the sky began; Chase was out there somewhere, learning and doing great things and living his dream. On a whole new adventure. My fingertips traced the blurred horizon, as if I could somehow reach past it to touch the outline of his face, the contours of which I had memorized by heart long ago. I closed my eyes. "I'm forever missing him."
The familiar clopping of oxfords against ground rang through my ears. Turning my head, I spotted Gill walking past us; a thick file nestled in the crook of his arm. I waved, shooting him a wide grin that was a mix between annoying and greeting.
Piercing cold jolted through my synapses, the exact same sensation as the very first time I'd been on the receiving end of one of his deathly glares. His icy blue eyes casted a condescending glower at me, before flicking upwards as he carried on his way.
My forehead crinkled, as I tried to decipher what had just happened.
Toby shook his head, chuckling. "Really? You like that guy?"
Hamilton's house oozed a certain grandeur once you approached it, as if the closer you got, the stronger the aura became. If you got too near, you would choke on the dusty stateliness. Expertly chipped away marble adorned the doorway, elegant curves creating the high, daunting arch. I stepped foot into the majestic mansion, hoping to Goddess that I hadn't left a muddy footprint on the ornate patterned carpet.
The gliding pen poised between Gill's slender fingers halted in its tracks, ink slowly blotting onto the ivory paper beneath. Creating puddles of murky indigo, dotted across the page.
I waited expectantly for him to react to my presence, to, at the very least, acknowledge it with a simple humph. Silence weaved through the air, spinning a web so thick I began to suffocate.
"You know, the polite thing to do when someone enters your house is to greet them," I called out to him from the entrance, leaning on one foot as the other kicked uneasily at the ground.
Frosty disinterest replied me, slinking its glacial claws into my heaving heart. "What's wrong with you?" I interrogated, agitation quickly growing in my veins, "Why're you suddenly ignoring me?"
It was evident that Gill had taken to giving me the cold shoulder ever since I'd waved at him that day, only to be accosted with a newly returned iciness. That had been a few days ago. As much as of a disgrace it was for me to admit, I had actually missed speaking – read, bickering – with him. His perpetual insults had become a grudgingly welcome constant over the past few weeks.
"I'm not ignoring you," he sniped back nippily, never lifting his eyes to so much as glance at me, "Now get out of my house." Blades of frozen crystals stung with his order. Never in my life had I seen somebody so wholly embody the harshest crevices of winter.
"What's with this hissy fit?" I probed, poorly concealed concern dripping over my notes, "Did I do something?"
"Get out," he snarled, so menacingly that I had to blink to expel some of the venom of his stone cold scowl. A rattlesnake sinking its fangs into my wrist, flooding my pounding arteries with unadulterated iciness.
"Fine," I finally hissed, hurt tingeing my flickering voice. I'd decided long ago that I was too good to chase people; to try and convince them of my worth. Disgust crawled in my nerves as I began to storm out of Gill's house. My farm boots halted by the doorway, obstinate roots entwining into the ground below.
I whirled around to yell at him, "I don't know what's your problem. You think it's funny to play with people's feelings?"
"I don't think you should be one to talk," he barked, putting his pen back to paper and blocking out my existence entirely.
I thundered out, crackling flames burning fury behind my eyes, fuming such thick black smog that I could barely see straight. I would never have admitted this to him, but irrepressible hurt invaded my brain, threatening to send tears to my quivering waterline.
Against everything, I turned back to look. Through the paneled window, I caught a glimpse of his stoic face buried into his velvet hands, frustration radiating from his dark shadow.
"I don't know who he thinks he is," I ranted infuriatedly, stabbing short fingernails into the stained mahogany tabletop, imagining Gill's maddening face as my target. Selena and Kathy watched on in a fusion of amusement and fear.
His stupid perpetually sulking mouth. Stab. His dumb platinum blonde hair and that untamable cowlick that never seemed to go away. Stab. His piercing – almost transparent – eyes that were made of glass; so intriguing and touchable in one moment, shattered and lacerating your guiltless skin in the next. Stab.
"Alright, that's it," Selena groaned, grabbing my wrist midway through its descent to the next stab, "I can't watch this anymore. Keep attacking the table and we'll be sending you the bill for the repairs."
"I just don't get why he has to be such a jerk," I grumbled under my breath, letting my enraged hands fall into my lap.
"Did you do anything to make him angry?" Kathy questioned gently, setting herself down in the chair opposite me. She twisted a slim finger through her cascading locks, ponytail a waterfall of flowing gold. Her small silver hoops reflected the Brass Bar's butterscotch lighting.
"Not that I know of."
"And he hasn't talked to you since?" she enquired further.
"No," I huffed, cheeks puffing out in exasperation. Nothing set my nerves alight more than the fact that I had no idea why he had suddenly, completely, withdrawn back into his mincing onion shell.
Gill was freezing cold lemonade; so cheek-puckering sour that you had to squeeze your eyes shut to absorb the sullen impact. His unreadable iciness left you with a dizzying headache that lasted for days. Simply looking at the acidic, ice cube laden beverage was enough to make you cringe, to send chills up and down your shuddering spine. But, here was the precious secret that I would never speak out loud: lemonade could also be sweet. Even when he spent all day insulting me, he still insisted on walking me home. Even when he growled and glowered and glared, he still cracked a smile when I walked through the door. And that, that alone, was enough to set my heart ablaze.
"And don't even try to tell me to talk to him," I warned the two beauties off, "You know how futile that would be."
"Please," Selena scoffed, waving a lithe hand across her tanned contoured face, "Neither of us are idiots. Well, I'm not at least," she smirked, darting her pearly purple eyes to Kathy's voluptuous figure.
"Hey," she rebutted in offense, kneading her mountainous knuckles into Selena's fleshy side for good measure, "Do you have to be so mean?"
"Siento," she scoffed unapologetically, barely muffling her sneers with gracefully bent fingers.
If Luna was my bratty little sister, then Selena was the bullying eldest sibling. Rolling her incensed eyes all the time and flagrantly frank, she was the human quintessence of fire – rearing to scorch your feelings away the moment she got the chance. Nevertheless, like any big sister, she was aggressively protective of all the girls on Castanet, even if her tongue was sometimes sharper than Chase's and Gill's combined.
"Here's what you do, honey," Selena clamped her elongated fingers onto the whimpering tabletop, edges of her long nails filed into pointed talons; burgundy claws that would slash at anybody who dared to wound her darling sisters, "You don't sit around moping, hoping that by some miracle the ice princess is going to come and talk to you. We all know that's not going to happen." She lifted one hand to flick a dangling strand of magenta fringe out of her skillfully made up face, shimmery copper eye shadow feathering out to blend seamlessly with her luscious bronze skin. Whisky swirling in a pure gold goblet.
Kathy and I held our breath, inching ever so slightly forward in anticipation for the next words that would leave Selena's plump, cinnamon-painted lips. "Strong girls like us don't wait around for Prince Charming to come and save us from our castle." She pressed her weight onto one agile wrist, placing her other hand on her ample hip, multiple bangles clanking dissonantly against one another in her lissome movements, "We save ourselves."
Deftly sensing the confusion buzzing statically in the air, her eyeballs rolled back in their sultry, slanted sockets. She heaved an irritated moan before continuing, "We get even."
"How do I do that?" I wondered aloud, forehead crinkling like a crushed sheet.
"Gill has a diary, right?" Selena quizzed pointedly, spider eyelashes batting with blistering determination.
I nodded, gulping, as I speedily understood where she was going with this.
"I say you sneak into his house and read his diary. He's bound to have whined over what he's mad about in some of those pages."
"Isn't that an invasion of his privacy?" Kathy urged anxiously, emerald eyes glistening in the rays of apricot light.
"It's the only way she's ever going to find out what prissy boy is upset about," Selena explained, as if it were the most logical plan on earth. Pride emanated from her tall satisfied figure. Kathy glanced worriedly at me, fatigue leaking from her drooping eye bags.
Selena had been absolutely right: Kathy was a strong woman; there was no doubt about that. She carried her mother's death on her back, like a rucksack of rocks that kept her continually moving – if she ever stopped to rest, she would collapse to her feet. Kathy was vivacious and electrifying and a source of light. Owen seemed to find a way to her dimmer, switching her off with their toxic fights and poisonous vicious cycles of we aren't what we used to be and I can't do this anymore. It wasn't Kathy's fault, and neither was it Owen's. It was just a matter of clinging onto the transitory perishable. Of reaching for the sun and getting burned. I wanted to drag Kathy into the space behind my eyes, to swaddle her in cottony blankets of comfort; she was strong but Owen made her weak. I wanted to protect her from the savagery that was their deteriorating relationship.
"You need to get some sleep," I voiced concernedly to the weary blonde, the psychedelic bubbles that used to radiate from her now mere shadows of olive drab.
"I really do," she smiled feebly back in response, rubbing creased fingers against her sunken cheekbones.
You didn't need to hear the words to know that somebody cared about you. Get some sleep meant I love you, please take better care of yourself, please don't stay in this lethal relationship any longer. Selena's here's what you do meant I love you, I'm going to teach you how to get what you want. Toby's do you think he could make you happy meant I love you, whatever you choose, I hope you'll be happy. Gill's walking me home meant I love you, please get home safe, I never want anything bad to happen to you.
"So," Selena interrupted, rubbing a hand up and down Kathy's shoulder as her silent succour, "Are you going to fight for what you want or let him just escape right through your crocodile skin fingers?"
"Crocodile skin?" I echoed, faux indignation playing in my throat.
"Please, sweetie, haven't you ever heard of moisturizer?" she shook her head, tumbling magenta curl swishing with her elegant movements.
Gill's smile when I intruded on his reading meant: I love you, it's okay that you disturbed my reading because I love your presence more.
"Thanks, you guys," I beamed gratefully to the two bombshells: one a blood red rose with prickly thorns, ready to pierce your fragile fingertips at a moment's notice; the other a vibrant sunflower, wilting slightly at the edges of its velveteen petals.
"You know what I always say," Selena began, pouty lips parted smugly, before I cut her off midsentence.
"I know," I interjected, whitened teeth revealed in my full grin, "I need you, honey."
Standing alone in the middle of Hamilton's living room, I felt like a clumsy ox, surrounded by delicate china vases, intricate lapis lazuli detailing running along their hourglass sides. I hardly dared to breathe, in case my wisp of breath sent them crashing like dominoes. On all the occasions that I had been in here spending time with Gill – meaning trading carefully calculated insults with him – I had never noticed just how many incredibly gorgeous, and not to mention expensive, decorations lay around his house.
My hazel eyes drifted to a picture sitting restfully atop the fireplace, its baroque gold leaf frame melding with the mantelpiece, as if the accumulation of all the years it had been placed there had resulted in it merging with the sturdy birch wood. The photograph housed Hamilton and Gill's beaming faces, along with a willowy woman whose hair was dazzling in the mellifluously shining sun. Her lips were painted with an ashen nude lipstick, prettily complementing her fair, flawless complexion. Gill's mother. Maternal pride seemed to spring uncontrollably from her marble blue eyes, as she carried a young Gill in her spindly arms. He must have been around three or four years old at the time. Her thin hair was pushed back into plumose curls, barely brushing past her bony shoulders. She nursed a sickly yet quiet beauty; a snow-white camellia that was no less lovely moments before its death.
Caught in my momentary daydream, the sound of the large imposing doors being rasped open sent shockwaves of panic through my nerves.
Damn it.
Frantically evaluating all my possible escape routes – rocking back on forth on my heels and admitting to Gill why I had been snooping around his house not being one – I hurriedly decided to shut myself in an ash closet, praying to God that a stray book wouldn't resolve to topple while I hid inside.
"You're being way too harsh on her," Luke's energetic voice bounced around the high-ceilinged room, entering my hiding space through a crack between the closed doors.
Against all odds, and much to everyone's surprise, Gill actually did have some friends; and Luke was the closest of them all. It was way past the realm of anybody's understanding how these two polar opposites had somehow managed to foster this strange friendship. Even the genius Jin remained baffled by this mystery. Luke was the loyal, eager Golden Retriever who panted enthusiastically, tongue lolling out of his ever-smiling mouth. Gill was the disinterested Siamese cat who lounged by the window and spat if you tried to run your hand through his plush coat.
"How so?" Gill's icy voice rang through the air.
"She doesn't even know why you're mad. And your reasons for being mad are totally unjustified, by the way."
"Why's that?"
"You can't be angry with her because she still misses her ex-boyfriend," Luke elucidated, divulging a mature side I hadn't known the silly carpenter possessed, "Besides, Chase isn't even here anymore. Why should he be standing in your way?"
Chase isn't even here anymore. The words impaled my heart, blue iron fluid gushing out from the wound. He was right; oh, God, he was right. And yet. I still could never let him go.
It hit me, a train derailing from its tracks and straight into my brain: Gill had overheard me saying I was forever missing Chase that day, when I had been talking to Toby. That's the part he heard? I thought mutely to myself in the enclosed space, musky scent of lumber assaulting my senses, He couldn't have heard me saying I liked him. Had to be when I was talking about Chase. I nearly burst out into sardonic laughter at the absurdity and tragic irony of the situation, but managed to stifle the noise just in time.
"I just don't want to be playing second fiddle to the love of her life," Gill's voice trickled with vexation. I could imagine him running a riled hand across his pleated forehead.
"You're being an idiot, dude," Luke declared, "You're using this as an excuse to run away."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gill retorted intimidatingly.
"You like her, probably so much that it scares you."
"Totally wrong."
"Deny it all you want, but I've never seen you this lovesick before," Luke's invigorating chuckle buzzed through the atmosphere; a bee blindly bashing into the cream walls of the room, "So, what do you like about her?"
A pause. He must have been deciding between confiding in his closest – dare I say best? – friend or constructing his habitual walls of acerbity to keep his feelings closed off from the tainting outside world. "She's capable," his voice was soft, the usual severe edges watered away, "When she first came to Castanet, I thought there was no way she could salvage that farm. But then, she went and did it anyway."
"Woah, way to be romantic."
I could almost hear Gill's spearing glare. "She's genuine. She doesn't try to be anyone but herself. And she knows herself well. She's confident without ever being cruel."
"You could learn from her on that."
Gill's glower sent an electric shock through the room. "Shut up."
"Sorry, sorry," Luke laughed, urging him to continue, "When did you know that you'd fallen for her?"
Silence reigned. I stopped breathing, suspended in a vortex of butterflies-riddled anticipation.
Gill's normally cold voice glowed with warmth. "When we had our first argument," he confessed, the room holding its breath as he spoke, "I knew that I'd met my match."
"Wow, dude," Luke replied, amber eyes probably wide in entrancement, "That's extreme."
"Alright, enough with the sappy stuff. Get out of my house already," Gill groused in tangible embarrassment, pushing Luke out of his home, bolting the door behind him. His polished oxfords clacked against the floor, each rap reverberating throughout the room. I heard him release a large exhalation of air from his lungs.
"You can come out now."
Crap. I dared to swivel my eyes around in the engulfing darkness, still cooped up between piles of musty novels and battered encyclopaedias.
"There's no one in here," I called out redundantly.
Glaring light rushed into my corneas, rendering me momentarily blinded. Once my optic nerves had adjusted to the brightness, I was met with Gill's sour face glaring at me. I chuckled sheepishly. "How'd you know I was here?"
"You scrambled around like a headless chicken before we walked in. I could hear your fumbling before we'd even reached the door."
"Really? Scrambled, headless and chicken all in the same sentence? That's a little insensitive to the poor birds, don't you think?" I attempted to use humour as a veil for my mortification.
"I guess you heard what we were talking about."
"Just a little," I glanced down at my boots, noticing that I had, indeed, left a faint trail of dirt on the griping carpet, "That's my bad. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, although, to be fair, I didn't really have a choice. Besides, if you knew I was in there, why'd you-"
Precipitously, it dawned on me, a steel bucket clanged against my incredibly dense skull, everything Gill had said just now had been a confession of his feelings. I felt my cheeks suddenly sear a deep carnation, wavy fuchsia petals imprinted into my rounded cheekbones. Amongst the myriad of bewilderment and bashfulness and astonishment racing through my mind, the main thought remained as this: Gill liked me back.
"Don't let it go to your head," he mumbled in awkwardness, tomato red painting his entire face, blending up past his temples and seeping into his scalp, "You're still the most annoying person I've ever met."
"Had the pleasure of meeting, you mean."
"So very annoying."
I lifted a finger to point accusatorily at him, willful beam stretching across my jaw, voice jumping with tones of teasing incredulousness, "You like me."
"So unbelievably annoying," he almost yelled, partially in shock and partially in distress, his entire face dipped in engine red.
"You like me," I repeated, true to his claims of my irksomeness.
"Shut up.
"You like me."
He rolled his eyes, grabbing a hold of my hovering fist, enveloping my hand with his burning one. "Yeah, a little," he groused, contorting his lips into playfully downturned disgust.
I couldn't resist from breaking into giggles, heart fluttering and head spinning in subtle euphoria.
"I'm fairly sure that you've never attended etiquette classes, but it's extremely rude to laugh during serious situations," Gill berated in humiliation, shyly daring to lace his lean fingers through mine. "So?"
"So what?"
"Idiot," he jeered, "This is the part where you either reject me or say you like me back."
"Idiot," I repeated, coy eyebrow raised in disbelief, "I'm holding your hand and you still have to ask whether I like you back?"
"I'm the one holding your hand," he refuted, ice blue eyes dancing behind their crystal shroud, "You could let go at any moment."
"And yet, I'm still here."
"And yet, you're still here," he echoed, the sweet fact rolling around his tongue like a buttery caramel.
"Well, you don't have to sound so sour about it."
"You're upsetting my entire existence."
"Fine, then I'll leave," I teased, never making a move to untangle my hand from his.
"I'd like to see you try," he taunted, before pressing his lips against mine. That was when I knew: inside of Gill existed ice and fire, and while the majority of his actions were embodiments of the former, his kiss was most definitely a product of the latter.
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Shadowfever' by Karen Marie Moning.
Author's Note: Oh man, okay, so I know that it seems that this relationship is progressing really fast, but there's supposed to be a time lapse in between the chapters. I'm trying to keep to the plan I have so that the story doesn't span seventy chapters or something. I hope you all enjoyed the (almost) fluff towards the end! Please review/follow/like and let me know what you thought!